Alita delivering a well deserved Groin Attack to Grute, shutting down his threats and forcing him to back off from the girls for the time being.
Keltan, against all odds managed to escape Tamita, Trek across Aygrima and discovered the Secret City all on his own. Not bad for a random teenager.
As nasty as he is, Grute's escape from the Secret City is surprisingly impressive, with him tearing a door off its hinges, using a reed to hide underwater for hours, and riding down an underground river to freedom.
After spending the first third of the book being unbelievably vile, Grute gets a well deserved Karmic Death at Mara's hands when he tries to rape her.
Mara, despite the danger and her trauma over her experience in the camp, opts to run in to rescue Katia, showing both extreme bravery and selflessness. In addition to this Edrik's response to Mara disobeying her orders is to immediately attack the camp to distract from her actions.
Mara giving a Watcher a Torso with a View when he almost kills Keltan, you do not want to mess with her friends.
Katia, after all the crap the Warden has put her through, decides to forgo escape in favor of stealing a Watcher's sword and brutally killing the Warden with it.
Mara saves the mine from the rockbreaker explosion by taking magic from everybody around her and directing the explosion towards the sky, showing just how powerful her magic is.
Shadows
Cell somehow surviving the shipwreck that killed his entire crew.
Chell, despite being unarmed, decides to throw himself at a Watcher, knocking him off his horse and breaking his neck.
Mara, after witnessing her father's execution at Stanik's hands, manages to use her father's magic to break her magic suppressing mask then disable the nearby Watchers by taking their magic and using it to decapitate Stanik and destroy Tamita's wall, giving her and Chell the opportunity to escape. Her magic training really paid off.
Chell proves to be very resourceful by sneaking in and out of Mara's room at night in order to strategize with her.
Mara and Chell's escape to the sea is pretty daring. When they steal a boat, Chell cuts all the other ones from the dock, throwing their pursuers of for a while. When a boat does catch up to them, Mara turns their magic on them and destroys the pursuing boat.
During the battle on the beach Mara manages to stop some of the magical attacks, saving several lives.
Faces
The Lady of Pain and Fire's appearance alone is a massive one given the Autarch closed a valley on her and she survived. Not long after this she shows her magical might by stopping an avalanche and saving the entire Unmasked Army.
The entire attack on the new Magic Mine is a long moment of awesome for Mara and Antril.
Antril proves to be an excellent tactician by figuring out solutions to every problem the Watchers put in front of them.
Mara proves to be an invaluable member of the group, utilizing her magic in order to aid Antril, and later tearing her way through the last part of the mine by herself.
During the attack on the original mine Mara finds the new Warden and makes his fireplace explode, incinerating him.
When The Lady's villagers suddenly attack the rest of the Unmasked Army, Chell Edrik, Mara, and Keltan manage to regroup and plan an attack that allows Mara and Keltan to sneak into the mineshaft where The Lady is.
Mara shooting The Lady with Keltan's crossbow, proving that for all her magic might, she's just as vulnerable to mundane weapons as anyone else.
Even better Mara uses her magic to collapse the entire mine onto The Lady's corpse.
Credit to the villains, the climax shows just how dangerous they really are
The Autarch saw through Mara's disguise immediately and then immobilized her, effectively winning the fight before it started. When he and The Lady fight for control over Mara's body, he's clearly the dominant one and was going to win before he was interupted.
The Lady managed to set up a Xanatos Gambit that allowed her to posses Mara after her death and personally confront her Arch-Enemy.
Greff of all people managed to break back into The Palace and stab The Autarch in the back, saving Mara's life.
Mara decapitates The Autarch with both his own mask and her fake mask, putting an end to his despotic reign and the masks.
Mara liquefying a member of the Sun Guard when he attacks her.
Edrik, Keltan, Chell, Antril, and a handful of The Unmasked Army's best fighters holding off a much larger force of Elite Mooks and were winning before the Mooks surrendered.
